Save ‘AJ and the Queen’ here’s why we want more of the RuPaul camp dramedy
Good things on Netflix never last long; like a stable relationship in a country song, they are doomed for failure.
AJ and the Queen premiered on Netflix on January 10, and by March, it was cancelled.
Series creator and star RuPaul Charles confirmed the cancellation on Twitter, noting it was the “end of the road for AJ and The Queen.” The series was a labor of love between RuPaul and Michael Patrick King, 2 Broke Girls co-creator and the former Sex and the City showrunner.
RuPaul starred as Ruby Red, naturally, a dynamic drag queen traveling across the country in a decrepit RV and her orphaned, 9-year-old acquaintance AJ (Izzy G). Josh Segarra, Michael-Leon Wooley, Katerina Tannenbaum, and Tia Carrere also were featured on the program.
It was just like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but with a lovable orphan sidekick.
The two made their way across the continental United States on a series of misadventures, and RuPaul performed a musical number in almost every episode.
It was delightful. It was sweet and corny and not necessarily well-acted, but it was delightful nonetheless. Here are several very important reasons why we need more of this show:
We want more, dammit
It’s not like Netflix is some bastion for prestige television, The Ranch is still airing, after all. And it was stacked with a cast of cameos that could rival RuPaul’s Drag Race (for the amount of cameos they pulled from former contestants of RuPaul’s Drag Race), and it was genuinely engaging to watch.
It’s worth it to see RuPaul perform
As the head of the judging table on RuPaul’s Drag Race, her role is similar to Supreme Leader Snoke from Star Wars: she must look over her loyal followers and lead them on to victory, it’s not like she can really take the stage for herself.
That’s what made AJ and the Queen such a breath of fresh air. RuPaul was back on the stage, where she belonged, putting on an amazing musical number for each short episode.
It ended on a cliffhanger
There is so much legislation that is important and deserves our attention. But the legislation we are willing to Tweet about would be a law that requires any show that gets cancelled on a cliffhanger to have at least an hour-long resolution episode to tie up loose ends.
AJ and the Queen concludes with AJ facing a reunion with her mother. RuPaul and King spoke to NewNowNext about the possibility of where these characters would end up in later seasons, noting the importance of being unpredictable in binge watching.
“We began our creative process, which is thinking ’What’s next? What haven’t you seen? What could happen? What’s unpredictable? What’s new,’” King said. “So we’re thinking a lot about the complicated triangle we created at the very end between Ruby/Robert, AJ, and Brianna. It’s a very interesting knot we’ve tied, and there are lots of ways we can untie it or make it tighter.”
That sounds amazing. If only we get to watch it.
There have been way worse television shows
The Big Bang Theory was on CBS for years, so there’s been worse. That’s all we’re saying.
Pull a Sense8 and give us a fitting conclusion to a show that was a breath of fresh air in a never-changing landscape of police procedurals and soap operas set in hospitals.
